A THREE-PHASE GRID-CONNECTED

MICROINVERTER FOR AC PHOTOVOLTAIC

MODULE APPLICATIONS

INTRODUCTION:
In recent years, the issues of electrical energy shortage and
environmental pollution have resulted in the increasing demand
for renewable energy sources, such as wind power, hydrogen
energy, solar energy, and so on. Among these renewable energy
sources, the photovoltaic (PV) sources have the advantages of
no supply limitations, emission free, and high reliability, and
thus, the number of installations over the world has experienced
a steep rise [1], [2]. In 2016, the total installed capacity of PV
has reached to about 300 GW, with an annual increased capacity
of 70 GW and an annual growth rate of 30%.
Generally, the grid-interactive PV systems can be divided
into three categories: the centralized inverter system, the string
inverter system, and the ac module system . Among these, the
centralized and string inverter systems are superior in terms of
conversion efficiency, unit cost, power density, and system
monitoring/maintenance and thus become the main form in the
practical applications with a great commercial success . In respect
to the residential and commercial applications, the centralized
and string inverter systems are used, where the PV panels are
usually connected in series so as to obtain a sufficiently high dc
voltage required by the central inverters.
Existing system:
Conventional step-up converters, such as the boost
converter and flyback converter, cannot achieve a high step-up
conversion with high efficiency because of the resistances of
elements or leakage inductance; also, the voltage stresses are
large. A boost converter (step-up converter) is a DC-to-DC
power converter with an output voltage greater than its input
voltage. It is a class of switched-mode power supply (SMPS)
containing at least two semiconductors (a diode and a transistor)
and at least one energy storage element, a capacitor, inductor, or
the two in combination. Filters made of capacitors (sometimes in
combination with inductors) are normally added to the output of
the converter to reduce output voltage ripple.

Drawbacks:
 High step-up single-switch converters are unsuitable to
operate at heavy load given a large input current ripple,
which increases conduction losses.
 The step-up gain is limited, and the voltage stresses on
semiconductor components are equal to output voltage.
 Low conversion efficiency, reverse-recovery, and
electromagnetic interference problems.
PROPOSED SYSTEM:
The proposed three-phase microinverter directly connects
four adjacent PV panels, and the system configuration is shown
in Fig., which consists of a dc/dc conversion stage, an active
third-harmonic current injection circuit, a threephase line-
commutated CSI, and an output LC filter. The dc/dc conversion
stage is composed of four flyback converters, and each flyback
converter consists of two interleaved subconverters. The
developed microinverter has four PV input terminals and is
installed directly on the back of one PV panel, and each PV
panel is connected to one of the PV input terminals of the
microinverter. Thus, each PV panel is operated independently
with its own MPP.

The line-commutated CSI consists of three arms and three

bidirectional switches. The output filter consisting of an inductor
LF and a film capacitor CF is mainly used for smoothing the
pulse currents generated by the inverter so as to produce three-
phase sinusoidal output currents. The active third-harmonic
current injection circuit is composed of a third-harmonic
injection inductor and a bridge leg, which constitutes the
topology used for ac PV module applications.

ADVANTAGES:
 The switches of the CSI are commutated with line
frequency here; the switching losses of power switches are
ignored; therefore, the power losses are relatively lowand
high conversion efficiency is achieved; and
 The CSI realizes dc/ac inversion without any energy
storage capacitors; consequently, high power density and
reliability of the converter are attainable.

APPLICATIONS:

 A grid-connected three-phase microinverter suitable for ac

PV module applications